


Memories, Longer Than The Road That Stretches Out Ahead

by gladonion (waltswhits)



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: 1980s, F/M, John Lives, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-01-07 15:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21218855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltswhits/pseuds/gladonion
Summary: In December 1980, John Lennon was shot.The shooter fumbled, and missed his target.What if John survived?





	1. Prologue: Seconds, split into pieces, seconds, are why I'm still here with you

**Author's Note:**

> (Warning in this chapter for major character injury).

_December, 1980_

The news reaches the world within hours. 

Newspapers sell out, letters in bold proclaiming "LENNON SHOT". 

Radios around the world play countless requests for "Imagine" and "Here Comes The Sun." 

It seems it'll be a long, cold, lonely winter. 

Paul McCartney watches the morning sun as he listens to a TV news announcer speak solemnly in the next room; he doesn't take in much but "John" and "shot" and "critical condition", he's weeping more than he can hear. 

He sniffles in, dries his eyes, and picks up the phone. 

"Yeah, hi Freda.....Yes, I've...ah...heard. Mhm.." he looks through the open door, sees Linda watching the TV broadcast soberly as she drinks her tea. He hesitates a moment, then pulls the door closed. 

"Look, is my schedule open this week?"  
He doodles with a pen on a pad beside the phone, intended for messages, but mostly used to busy his fingers.

"Alright, can you cancel the stuff on Tuesday? I need you to book me a flight." 

He glances again at the closed door. The sound of the news is a muted drone now, and it sounds as if they've moved on to some other horror of the world, Paul can't imagine how. 

"Yeah, New York....doesn't matter when. Just as soon as you can get. Call me right back… Thanks, Freda."

Paul arrives at JFK airport at 5 in the morning, tired and uneasy. An assistant (ubiquitous, their breed is, in his life) is there to usher him quickly away from the crowds and retrieve his luggage, and in a blink, he's walking into the Algonquin Hotel. The sun has barely risen above them, so the lobby is deserted, save a very put-upon looking desk clerk. 

John lets the assistant check him in and escort him to the room. 

It's smaller than what he usually stays in, with only a bed, a desk, and a couch in the room; but on such short notice he can't be picky, and a warm bed is a warm bed. 

As soon as he is alone, Paul falls into a fitful sleep, still in his clothes. 

He wakes at 3 pm, and calls a car to take him to Lenox Hill Hospital. He doesn't bother to eat before he hurries off. 

The car arrives onto a grim scene.  
Behind metal partitions, a crowd of weeping onlookers carry signs, yelling their prayers for John Lennon's soul. A few of the fans crane their necks and squint their eyes to look into the darkened windows of Paul's car. 

The chauffeur turns to look at Paul.  
"Are you sure you want to go in there now?”

Paul looks again at the barely-contained chaos outside. He straightens his coat collar.  
"I have to." 

The man nods and exits the car, coming around to Paul's side of the vehicle. 

As the door to the conspicuously inconspicuous black car opens, a few of the devoted fans gasp. 

"I think that's Paul McCartney!" a teenaged voice calls above the roar. 

Quickly, Paul walks to the hospital's entrance, shielding his face from the cold and the cameras. 

John is in a room on the 6th floor, a woman at the front desk tells him. 

He rushes to the elevator, and stares at his shoes as he rides it up to the destination. 

He walks up to the front desk, where a beleaguered woman types on an equally beleaguered typewriter. She doesn't look up when he approaches. 

"I'm, uh, I'm here to see John Lennon." 

She laughs, but doesn't look up from her work. 

"Family only, sweetheart. Hospital policy." She barks out in a distinctly New York accent. 

"But I'm...Paul?" he ekes out, finding himself very aware at once of his tiredness, and how out of place he really was. Perhaps it was a sign he should just give it up and head back home. 

"Paul _Lennon_?" The receptionist asks, businesslike, but still finding the exchange more than a little amusing. 

"Paul McCartney." 

The woman finally glances up from her typewriter, and her eyebrows jump momentarily in surprise and recognition; but they quickly descend as she returns to business-as-usual. 

"I'll need an ID." 

Paul rummages around in his suit jacket, then produces the thin slip of laminated paper. He shows it to her, but doesn't let go of it, lest she snatch it away. 

That seems to placate her, and she flings an arm to her left in gesture. 

"Second door to the left. He's not doing so good." 

Paul presses his lips together in concern, and follows her directions. 

John is alone in the dim hospital room, his breaths rattling through the space as he sleeps. 

Paul gently closes the door behind him, and walks hesitantly to the bed. 

John is hooked up to a half dozen monitors and tubes, and a smell of blood and disinfectant fills the air. His entire right shoulder and much of his torso is bandaged up. A machine in the corner beeps every few moments with the beats of his heart- still beating, thank the stars above.  
Paul, without thinking, runs a gentle hand through John's wavy hair, crusted in the ends with blood and sweat. 

He rests his hand there, Paul isn't sure how long, and watches as John labours to breathe and rest. 

John stirs slightly in his sleep, and opens a crusted eye. 

"Paul?" he creaks groggily, "how did you get here?" 

Paul chuckles sadly. John was probably on every painkiller they had in the hospital, twice over. 

"Flew over to see you." 

"Didn't know you could do that." John raises a bushy eyebrow. 

"Learnt how last month. Shame you couldn't be there, Johnny." Paul smiles despite himself. 

In the haze of drugs and near-death, John seems to have entirely forgotten a time when the pair of them had been in conflict. He smiled warmly, groggily, and freely. 

"You'd better teach me, when I get out of here, then." 

Paul fought back a sob. _If_ he gets out of here, he thought. 

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, John."


	2. Chapter One: Memories, forged and boxed away, see the light, please

_February 20, 1981_

Back in “Jolly Old” London, Paul hums an old tune as he makes himself a morning cup of tea. 

Satisfied with the look of the cuppa, he sits himself down on the couch and props his feet up on the table. 

Paul finds the remote and clicks on the TV, tuned already to BBC News, it seems. 

He sips his drink as he listens to the presenter drone on about the weather and lets his mind wander. 

"I'm here today with the musician John Lennon. As I'm sure you have all heard, on the 5th of December, Mr. Lennon was shot by a man named Mark David Chapman. Thankfully, the bullet wound proved to be anything but fatal, and he's already on the mend from the injury. How are you today, John?" 

The voice pulls Paul out of his reverie, and he finds himself watching the interview attentively. 

"I've been better," John chuckles, pointing with his free arm to the bandages that hold his right shoulder and arm close to his chest. "But I've been worse, y'know." He nods solemnly.

"Well, on behalf of our viewers, I'll say we're all very glad to see you looking much better," the interviewer smiles. A banner on the bottom of the screen identifies the man as a Robert Humphrey. 

"Y'know that's very, uh, kind. I'll tell you who's not happy to see me better, and I'll give you one guess, Robert." Paul recognises John's teasing smirk. 

"I couldn't guess, Mr. Lennon. Mr. Chapman, perhaps?" Robert seems to think this is rather clever of him. 

John chuckles, surprised by the answer. 

"I suppose he wouldn't be very happy with me still standing here, no. I'll tell you who's not happy, with uh, me getting better and moving about, and that's the _hospital_." John pauses to let the studio audience laugh, "costing me a bloody fortune in the bills, y'know. My advice to you all is not to get yourselves shot, it's a terrible investment." 

Paul chuckles despite himself and sips at his tea. Leave it to John to turn that into a laugh. 

"I'll try my best not to." The interviewer says with the finality of a long-trained newsreader declaring one story finished, onto the next, in inflection alone. 

"So, Mr. Lennon, how _has_ your time in the hospital and at home healing been? Pick up any new hobbies?" 

John nods. "Oh, sure. Spent a lot of time just thinking. I was soaring for a week or two on the painkillers they were pumping into me, y'know. Memories kept coming to me, people too, like how they say your life is supposed to flash before your eyes, right? Only this was so slow. Took its time, made me really think about just what I've been doing for forty years." 

John pauses, seeming caught in a thought, then carries on. 

"Shocking, dirty habit I've gotten into most of all is the telephone. You get tired of the TV screen and the doctors and the visitors talking at you, and you want to do some talking for a while." 

"Talking with anyone in particular?" Robert raises an eyebrow on the grainy colour screen. 

"All kinds of people, all kinds," John shifts around in his chair. "Had an hour conversation just the other day with David, David Bowie. Talked about what he's working on, the electronic music, and all sorts of things. It's nice, y'know. Was always an in-person sort of person, but there's something real personal, real intimate about it, especially when you're stuck in a bed.” 

The interviewer nods and changes the subject. 

"Speaking of music, will you be working on anything new soon?" 

"Well, we just released the last album, Double Fantasy, y'know, and that's been doing alright. Selling even better now, since I've been shot, which is something, that is. And, uh," John points to the bandages on his upper arm, "I'm not in the, uh, in the best shape for working right now." 

Paul's mouth falls open. He hadn't even realised, had been too shocked to even think about it. John had been shot in his right arm. His dominant hand, that had made so much music in his life, hung limp by his side. 

"Still healing, of course." The presenter smiles politely and glances up at his teleprompter. 

"Oh, go on," John smirks. "Ask me what you've been dying to ask." 

"What's that?" Robert seems more than a bit taken aback by John's forwardness. 

"Oh, you know. 'What about the Beatles, John.' 'I know it's been a decade, John dear, but could there be a comeback in the works?' 'When'd you see Paul last, John?' Everyone's always begging to know." John teases the interviewer. 

Paul's eyebrows rose. He wondered why John seemed to push the question, and he wondered even more why he'd brought him up. 

The interviewer glances at the monitor in front of him, then looks back to John with a polite smile. "Well, is there anything in the works with the Beatles, then?"

"No!" John laughs, but he wasn't mocking. "I'll tell you, there's definitely nothing in the works." Something in his tone seemed sly, somehow knowing, to Paul, but the interviewer didn't pick it up. 

"Oh dear! Seems that's all the time we have today. Thank you again for coming to talk to us, Mr. Lennon." 

"Anytime." John smiles politely, and that was that. 

Paul was truly glad to see John healing up and back into the swing of things. And, perhaps it was his imagination, but it seemed that John really was happier. He seemed more at peace, ironically, than the last time he'd been chanting for giving peace a chance. 

He thought back to John's remarks about memories and people from his past, and tried not to get his hopes up. He contemplated picking up the phone, but dashed away the thought. 

Paul finishes his tea and brings it to the kitchen sink. Best get the day started, then. 

_March 3, 1981_

“Yoko?” John calls into the hallway of their starkly white apartment. He holds Sean with one arm, resting him on his hip. 

There’s no response. 

“Yoko?” he calls again, walking down the hall towards their bedroom. 

Behind a closed door, John can hear Yoko’s voice, seemingly on the phone with someone else. 

He listens in for a moment, at what he can hear. 

He hears Yoko laugh, happily. 

“Stop that, stop it!” She jokes at the person on the other line. 

John knocks firmly on the door with his free hand. His wound is just about healed now, though his arm is still weak from the weeks of unuse. 

“I’m on the phone, John!” she calls in response, not getting up. 

“Fine,” John’s face falls. “I'm taking Sean for a walk.” 

Yoko doesn’t reply. 

John sighs and walks toward the door. He sets Sean down on a bench in the entryway. 

“We’re going to take a nice walk, eh, Sean? Just us two.” 

“I like to walk,” Sean grins as John laces his sneakers, a hilariously small duplicate of John’s own white tennis shoes. 

“You sure do, little man.” John puts on a cap and a pair of dark sunglasses, then pulls the door open for Sean to walk through. 

Sean’s little hand clutches onto John’s as he is led through the lobby and across the street towards Central Park. 

“We gonna see the ducks, daddy?” Sean looks up at John with a hopeful smile. 

“For sure.” 

Sean giggles in glee and skips a little ahead of John down the winding, bench-lined path towards the Lake. 

John stuffs his hands in his pockets as he strolls behind Sean, a slight smile dancing on his features as he enjoys the brisk spring day. 

John tries to keep his mind at ease, watching his son as he stops to pick up leaves, examine them, and carefully place his most favorites into his coat pockets; but looking at Sean makes him think of Yoko, which makes him think on how she seems to be neglecting him- outright ignoring him, really- as of late. 

“Look, Dad!” Sean bounds up to him, a maple leaf big as his grinning face held proudly in his hands, “I’ve never seen a leaf this big, _never!_” 

John shakes away his darkened thoughts and smiles at Sean with pride.

“That's a spectacular leaf you have there, love. And it is _so_ big- let me hold it.” He offers up his palm. 

As Sean places the leaf gingerly into it, John feigns being pushed down by a heavy weight. “Whoa, there! You tryin’ to kill your old dad?” John jokes.

Sean roars with laughter and snatches the leaf back up. “It's not _that_ heavy!” He places it in his pocket with the rest of his collection. “You're silly.” 

“That's my profession." John takes Sean’s hand and they carry on down the path. 

Sean points ahead at the little cove in the lake that they're nearing. “Ducks! Ducks!” 

John notices a hot dog vendor on the path just before them, and rummages around in his pocket for a few coins. He asks and pays for two buns, hold the sausage, then gives one of them to Sean. 

Gleefully, Sean runs ahead toward the water. He tears the bun into chunks and throws them haphazardly into the water. 

John follows close behind, watching his son with pride. He gives Sean the second bun, and thinks wistfully just how glad he is to be alive, right now, if only for the simple moments like these. 

_March 15, 1981_

Paul is putting his coat on, about to leave the house, when he hears the telephone ringing.

"I'll get it!" He yells to the empty house, out of both habit and humour, and picks up the phone. 

"McCartney residence, may I ask who's speaking?" Paul speaks into the receiver in a nasal, comic voice. 

"Hey, Paul." 

"H-hey, John." Paul wasn't sure who he was expecting to hear from, but it wasn't him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he jokes again, half-heartedly. 

“Yoko’s busy.” John deadpans, then gives a little awkward laugh. 

“So I’m the other woman, then.” Paul drawls as he shrugs his coat back off and settles into the couch. 

“If you want to put it that way.” John jokes, but he seems hesitant, unsure of what to say. 

“Well, ah, how are you doing?” Paul picks up John’s loose ends with a practiced ease. 

“Oh, well, I’m alright. Arm’s getting better.” 

Paul listens, thinking how odd it is that they can't get past small talk on the phone now, when they used to talk about the universe together. 

“That's, uh, that's good to hear.”

(What was there for Paul to say? Remember when we last saw each other in the hospital, when we both thought you might be dying? Do you maybe remember what you’d said?)

Paul clears his throat. “How's Sean?”

This seems to clear some of the air between them. 

“Oh he's great, just wonderful. He’s getting so big, y’know, he grows out of a pair of shoes every two months.” 

Paul chuckles. “Stella is like that, too. Growing like garden weeds. Is Sean in school yet?” 

“No, no, we haven't done that yet. Finding the right one, especially in New York, is just a nightmare. Yoko and I toured one of those private preschools in the fall, it was like a university, it was, just with _very small desks._” 

The two of them laugh a bit over that. 

“So, no, after that we just gave up looking and, ah, figured he'd be alright to wait another year, or two maybe. I’ll do it soon, y’know, I will, but I just get worried.” John pauses, “I worry if it's such a good idea, if it's really safe, an’ all.” 

Paul hms in response. “It's difficult, believe you me, but you'll figure it out. Linda and I decided just to send them to the regular schools, y’know, make them feel like real, normal kids. And they are, normal kids, all of them. Normal kids, with very strange parents.” 

“Strange is an understatement, Macca.” 

Paul blushes at the familiar nickname, one he hadn't heard in a long time. 

“Speaking of,” John begins, “I’m thinking about taking a holiday, to take my mind off things. Taking Sean, too. Show him some of our old stomping grounds, give him some roots to hang onto, and all that crap. Mostly, though, I'm bored to hell, and tired of being nursed.” John laughs and carries on, “So, I really called to ask if you'd want to see us, when we’re in London?” 

Paul presses his lips together, thinking over the times that John and Yoko had been to visit before. “When are you three thinking about coming?” 

“Oh, not sure. Two weeks, I think,” John coughs. “And it's not, uh, all three of us. Just Sean and me. Yoko’s...real busy. Got an installation thing going in San Francisco, she’ll be gone a month, give or take. It's all right, really. Gives Sean and me time to…bond, or summat.” 

Paul runs a finger across his lips in thought. 

“I’d be glad to see you both, if you want to visit, of course.” 

“Sean would like that, I think. Visiting his Uncle Paulie,” John laughs. 

“_Uncle Paulie,_” Paul repeats in disbelief. 

“That's you, that is.” 

A moment of silence passes between them. Paul shifts around on the couch. 

“So,” Paul asks as he twists the phone’s cord around his finger, “When’ll you two be coming to London?” 

“‘Round April First, I think. I’m calling to get the flights arranged tonight. Then after that there's the packing and everything else to figure out.” 

“And where will you stay?” Paul asks. 

“Haven't figured that out, neither,” John admits. “Spur of the moment thing, it was.” 

“No, really?” Paul feigns disbelief, then returns to his friendly insistence. “You're both welcome to stay at Cavendish, y’know, if you don't want to bother with hotels.” 

John makes a noise Paul can't quite make out, rather like he just swallowed a fly. 

“That would, uh, be real nice, if you want us there,” John trailed off. 

“I do. Want you there.” Paul affirmed. “Linda and the girls never come down here, anyway, and it would do Sean some good, besides, to see what a real house looks like.” 

“Come off it,” John laughs, “Alright. That'll be, uh, that'll be good. I'll call you back later, when I've booked the flights and everything.” 

“Ta, alright,” Paul shifts in his seat. 

“Ta, Paul.” 

Paul listens to the dead air of the disconnected phone for a moment before he hangs the phone back up.

He wonders what on this green earth he’s gotten himself into, wonders why he agreed, wonders even more why he told John they'd be alone in the house. 

Paul looks out the window, and finds himself thinking fondly back on the time when he and John had just about made this house their home. 

He thinks about songs written and sold, memories forged and boxed away, and then he smiles at the slim, though glimmering prospect of he and John making some more.


	3. Chapter Two: words on tape, recorded long ago, fading away

_ April 2, 1981 _

John holds Sean’s wriggly little body close, sitting him on his lap as they rode in the back of the hired car, driving through London. Sean's head hadn't stopped turning since they landed, taking in his new environment voraciously and without fear. 

John could not say the same about himself. 

His thoughts dart back and forth, emotions traveling a mile a minute. He felt a bit like throwing up, but felt just as much like crying tears of joy. He could not place his finger on it, but something felt right. Frighteningly right. 

“Look, daddy! Is it Big Ben?” Sean jabs a finger at the window, pointing at a church tower, just barely three stories high. 

“Not quite,” John chuckles, “It's it's little sister though, Little Bernadette,” he riffs playfully. 

Sean nods, taking that in. “And this?” He prods as they pass the British Museum. 

“World’s largest chocolate factory.” John responds readily, reveling in his son’s simple joys. Faintly, he hears the driver chuckle. 

The remainder of the ride passes in much the same way, Sean pointing out ever more sights and John supplying fantastical answers, until the driver finally slows to a stop. 

“Is here alright?” The driver asks, stopping anyway.

“Yes, yes, here should be fine,” John replies distractedly, eyes glued to the house before them. 

“I'll just help with luggage, now?” The driver asks, rhetorically again. 

“Ta.” John acknowledges, opening the car door and stepping out. He regards the home a moment, eyes resting somewhere between wistfulness and dread, then turns back to the car, lifting Sean out and up onto his hip.

“Where are we now, Dad?” Sean points. 

“Paul McCartney’s Royal Abode,” he deadpans, thinking how strange it was that children so easily forget where they've been. 

“I know a Paul.” Sean states confidently, “I also met another Paul on the playground last week.” 

“Aye, you do know a Paul,” John mutters, mostly to himself. His head bolts up as he hears the door unlatch, and Paul McCartney, in the very flesh, steps onto the cobbled drive before them. 

John takes a tentative step forward, with Sean held deftly at his hip. “Speak of the devil,” he smirks at Paul as he approaches the pair. 

“And a good afternoon to you too,” Paul teases right back. He plants a gentle kiss on Sean’s head. Sean squirms and giggles, and John lets him down onto the lawn with a chuckle. 

Sean takes off at a run as soon as his feet meet the ground, investigating each hedge and interesting rock at a turn. John and Paul watch him silently for a moment, thanking the excuse to avoid eye contact just a bit longer. 

It's John who breaks the silence first, with a tentative “thank you. Thank you for letting us, ah, stay here…”

Paul picks up his frayed ends and continues, still watching Sean. “It's no problem. I like having the company.” He turns to face John, looking him dead in the eyes, his watery eyes betraying something melancholic, though he chuckles, “I am a wonderful nursemaid, I've been told.” He indicates John’s still mending wound. 

“Oh sod off, Macca.” John rolls his eyes, grinning despite himself. He missed this easy rapport of theirs, evidently they both did, and they seemed to slip right back into it like a well-worn, shared shirt. It suited them better than the temperamental avoidance of the past few years, which they adamantly would ignore, at least for now. 

John’s chauffeur clears his throat behind them, one arm extended to indicate the suitcases piled at Paul’s front stoop. “Will you be needing any assistance taking the luggage inside?” he asks politely. 

John looks to Paul, who dismisses the man with a smile. “We can manage from here, thanks very much.” 

The chauffeur nods a capped head and hurries back to his dark car, driving off again after a moment.

“We can perfectly well carry a few things up stairs, we've not become so posh to be incapable.” Paul smirks. 

John shakes his head with a playful smile. “You know I can't,” he holds his right arm, still looking a bit limp and useless at his side. 

Paul’s mouth shapes into a soft “o”. 

“Well, I can, at least. Besides, I hate being watched in my house like that.”

“'Fraid they'll peek in your nighty drawer, Paulie?” John laughed. 

“Something like that.” Paul takes the handles of two cases from the pile and passes through the opened front door to Cavendish. 

John calls for Sean to follow him in, gripping his little hand carefully with his weakened one. 

John enters the home, and hums contentedly. Yes, this was just what he needed. 

\-----------

_ April 3, 1981 _

  
  


It’s late at night- so late at night that it's early in the morning- and John can't sleep. He pads out of the narrow guest bed he’d been given to sleep in, a door down from Sean, but clear across the house from Paul. 

He creeps down the winding stairs, heading straight for the kitchen, namely, the liquor cabinet. Paul still stores all the good stuff in a narrow, high cabinet, far from the children’s reach, though John knows they never come here. This is Paul’s house, his alone. 

John takes down a decanter, mostly full of whiskey, with a silent promise to replace whatever he drank. He fills a glass with a few fingers, perhaps a few too many more than was strictly advisable, and takes a long drink of the stuff. 

John clutches the glass as he lets the whiskey work its way into his mind, settling something squirming round inside his soul, feeding a tiger he didn't know needed feeding, perhaps. He raises the glass to take another drink, when he hears a familiar tune, just faintly, from somewhere. He listens closely for a few moments, letting the whiskey and the melody swim in his blood, before he takes in where it's coming from. A few clicks and jumps of the sound from the next room, and he’s put his finger on it. He fetches another glass and fills it with a few sips of the whiskey, then takes them both to the living room. 

Paul is sitting cross legged on the floor, staring softly out into space. There isn't much light in the room, save the soft glow from the hall light and the buttons lit on his hi-fi. An old tape rattles on in the player, an old demo of theirs. John recognises it at once- an old melody the two of them had been playing around with for a decade, on and off. Paul is listening to the last version of it they recorded: 1967, a messy, informal session, just the two of them, sat in this very living room. 

John hovers in the doorway, holding the glasses, not daring to move an inch. 

John from 1967 halts his playing with a laugh, fuzzy on the old tape. ‘That was proper shite,’ he chuckles to a younger Paul, noodling away a few nonsense notes on his bass. 

‘I thought it weren't too bad,’ 1967 Paul reasons, with a pluck of an E string. 

John listens to the tape, closing his eyes. He remembers this day well, now. Summer, 1967. 

The pair of them had woken up late, spent all the day in their pyjamas, called in a takeaway curry for dinner, and lounged around like lumps til the sun set. They took Martha for a walk at around seven, looking like the neighborhood fools in their pyjama bottoms and tennis shoes, John in Paul’s cape and Paul wearing the sofa’s throw as a shawl. They'd been joking and humming as they went down the road and back, til Paul hummed  _ that _ song as they neared the door, and as soon as they’d gotten their shoes off again they’d started working on it again, like addicts drawn into a den. 

‘Not  _ too _ bad,’ John moped on the tape, ‘still isn't  _ good _ .’ 

‘Oh, quit your moaning.’ Paul replied with a strum. 

A dull, musical thud- John putting his guitar down on the rug. ‘Fine.’ 

Silence. 

Another musical thud. 

An airy gasp. ‘John-’ spoke the younger Paul, haltingly, and the recording cut off there. 

The tape deck spun on, a mournful whisper in the newly silent room. 

John takes a tentative step further into the room. 

“Didn't know you kept all those,” John speaks to Paul’s turned back, nearly at a whisper. 

“Hoarder, you know me.” Paul doesn’t turn. 

John steps closer to Paul, hovering behind him as they both watch the rest of the tape, blank, rattle on in the deck. 

After a few moments unspoken like this, Paul slowly rises to press eject on the player. 

“Couldn’t throw 'em away.” Paul takes the tape out, turning it in his hands. “I tried,” he looks up at John, a strange sort of melancholy clouding his features, “but I could never get up the nerve.” 

John nods. 

“Drink?” is all he can manage to say, emotional discussion having never been his forte.

Paul nods, taking the glass from John’s outstretched hand, their fingers brushing, igniting something in John’s mind, like a faraway melody.

Memories, labeled. Boxed away. Hidden in drawers and stashed away. Boxes… that could open. Could it be that way? 

Paul takes a long sip of the whiskey from his glass with a tired wince. “Isn't this stuff mine?” 

“Might be,” John hides his face in a sip from his own glass. “I’ll buy us a new bottle tomorrow.”

“Mind you do.” Paul finishes his glass with a contented sigh. “Do pick up the milk and eggs as well, while you're out, dear,” he said with a smirk and a faux-posh voice. 

“Certainly,  _ darling _ ,” John dares, finishing his drink and setting it aside. He sits down on the pale coloured sofa, sprawling, pleasantly drunken. 

“Thank you, dearest.” 

Paul’s cheeks have gone noticeably rosy; whether from the drink or the conversation, John wasn't sure. 

Surprising himself, Paul joins John on the sofa, settling in on the cushion mere inches from John. 

“We should write a song.” John bursts out, with drunken enthusiasm. 

“Not right now.” Paul groans, leaning back into the sofa. 

“Not right now.” John echoes, moving nearer to Paul. 

The two of them pass a moment in comfortable silence, Paul shifting to face John, a leg daring to drape over John’s. 

“This is nice,” John smiles. 

“What is?” 

“This,” John repeats. “Missed being here. Missed you.” 

“Missed you, too.” Paul says, quietly, like a prayer. 

“We keep repeating one another.” John chuckles. 

“We do.” Paul echoes again, smiling softly. “I...haven't...haven't got the right words,” he admits. 

“We never needed words,” John says reverently, a tentative hand reaching up to cup Paul’s cheek. 

Paul gasps involuntarily. 

“You're right. We never did.” 

Paul breathes in, languidly, then closes the already narrowing gap between their lips. 

\------------

_ April 4, 1981 _

  
  


Paul is woken, bright and early, by the bouncing of a child on his mattress. He rises in confusion, rubbing sleepy eyes to see Sean sitting cross legged at the foot of his bed. 

Paul can't quite remember when or how he got into his bed. His head is pounding and he wishes he could rest longer, but he doesn't have the heart to ignore the child. 

“Hello Paul!” Sean chirps cheerily, “I’m hungry.”

_ Well, he certainly gets to the point, _ Paul thinks to himself. 

“And you'd like me to make you breakfast.” 

Paul abandons the idea of getting more sleep and sits himself up in bed, suddenly aware of two very indisputable and alarming facts: he doesn't have any shirt on, and John is in the bed next to him, facedown in a pillow, dead to the world in sleep. Paul hastily covers his body in the comforter and faces Sean with a calm smile, a well-practised false look of his. 

“Yes please.” Sean nods, then continues on in a single breath, “I woke up this morning, like ages ago, and I was looking for my Dad and I couldn't find him. So I checked downstairs and he wasn't there, not in any of the rooms, and then I went up here and I checked all the doors and I didn't find him and then I checked here and then I found him. And you! Did you have a sleepover?”

Paul holds back a laugh. “Yes, yes we did.” 

At Paul’s right, John finally begins to stir. Sean grins, then leaps on top of his father. 

“ _ Jesus! _ ” John wakes with a start. 

Sean erupts into giggles, his little arms hugging his father’s neck. 

“Scared the living daylights outta’ me,” John mutters, without malice. He threads a few fingers through Sean’s hair, eyes opening slowly. 

“Can we have breakfast? I’ve been awake for  _ hours _ .” Sean complains into John’s chest. 

“Sure, kid,” John pats Sean on the back. “Whaddya want to eat?” 

“Eggs.” Sean says decidedly. 

“Eggs it is, then.” John says, deeply serious. 

Sean rolls off of John’s stomach, settling himself into the space on the bed between him and Paul. 

“How about you set the table for us and we’ll come join you in a mo’, love?” John nudges Sean. 

Sean sits up, his face screwed about in mock contemplation. “I don't know what plates I’m supposed to use.”

Paul sighs, rolling over to face the child. “Whichever ones you want. Just be careful, alright, Sean?”

Sean nods, grinning with excitement over having been granted immeasurable power. 

“I will. I'm very careful,” Sean insists, leaping off the bed. 

John and Paul lay in a momentary silence, listening to Sean’s padding footsteps down the hall. 

John is the first to break the silence, sitting up slowly. “Did we…” 

Paul blushes, then quickly clears his throat. “I don't think so...I’m not sure...do you think so?”

“I don't know. Maybe?” John groans. “Hungover. Still a bit drunk, perhaps, really..” 

“Head’s killing me,” Paul commiserates. 

“Shit.” John rises from the bed, quite naked. 

“Yeah.  _ Shit _ .” Paul nods and rises, assessing his matching state of near-complete undress, then offers: “You can wear something of mine, if you like. Save you the trip.” 

John nods, taking in the simultaneous strangeness and familiarity of the situation, then busies himself in searching through Paul’s dresser drawers. 


End file.
